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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Even
though I blogged extensively about Ronn Moss last weekend, it behooves me to
blog again this weekend because frankly, I feel like whining. What does this
mean? It means that this blog is having its period, so shit’s about to get all
emo and uterusy up in here. The good news is that I won’t be blogging next weekend.

So did yougaiz see this yougaiz? Tote bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets that say Namaste, Bitches and have that folded Indian hands thing that Indians do, complete with exotic Indian religious symbols also. My first thought
when I saw this was, aw man I wanted to think of that first! The product
descriptor says, and I quote, “Enlightenment has never
been easier. Plus this way you don't have to go to India and swim in raw
sewage. (All proceeds benefit charity)”. I couldn’t help but agree on this one. Because
don’t you just hate it when you’re like all in India and stuff and swimming in
raw sewage, as it is your wont to do because you live in India, and you’re like
‘I wish I didn’t have to swim in raw sewage. I wish I could swim in chlorinated
peewater like the cool people in America.” I am hoping that they will make one another totebag that says
‘Vanakkam you moist motherfuckers’, with religious symbolism of Hinduism, Islam
and Christianity neatly lined up at the bottom, thus reflecting the unity in
diversity of this country.

That’s not even what I wanted to whine about, I wanted to whine about
ebooks. Or I wanted to whine about how other people are whining about ebooks.
I’ve always been a little flabbergasted by the good folks who have very strong
anti-ebook feelings, especially those who haven’t actually read one and on further
investigation, one discovers that they aren’t really sure what an ebook is,
they just know they reallyreally hate them and they suck. I know I’m being
superracist here but it seems like these illustrious folk always say the same
thing-

'One needs to be able to touch, smell, lick, and fornicate with
certain parts of the book’s binding in order to experience the real and truly complete
reading experience. Anything else is not reading. Also you can read the words on the pages if you want but this is not necessary.'

Ok first, wow. Second, am I missing something with this booksmell
thing? Because I feel like a lot of the books I have been unfortunate enough to
smell somehow managed to be sour, bitter and kind of like musty ass and once I may
have accidentally inhaled a small silverfish also. This may have been because
most of these books were not second or third hand books but eleventy-twelvty
hand books which spent a large amount of time on the pavement and people may
have peed on them at some point also. Which led me to think, hay maybe this
aspect of molesting your reading material as part of your reading experience is
actually a privilege. I say this as someone who has often not been able to
get my hands on “real” books, but I could access ebooks and podcasted
books which were available even in my tiny corner of the world and often for totes free. I think that eating and rubbing a book all over your body may
be one of many reading experiences. I don’t think it’s the only one, the real
one, the true one, the authentic one, the original one, or the best one ever. Not all of us have the means to buy and do that to our books. Many of us
may not want to do that also. I don’t think that means that we are not reading
because we are not reading like you are.

This gif has nothing to do with anything, much like the argument
that ebooks have no soul which quite frankly, is one of those things that makes
you feel embarrassed for the person who said it. Feel like it would be more
interesting if peeps said, I hate ebooks because they have no large intestine.

'Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard literature to be
published.'

Oh noes! What are we going to do yougaiz??!!! Somebody call the book police so they can save us from the horrific, substandard literature!!!1 When peeps say things like hay if I was the king of the god of
everything, I wouldn’t let shit like Twilight get published and I'd teach everyone what good books are, it's scary like Scientology scary. I feel that people will always read things that other people will find horrific and substandard, but even if you don’t respect
what they’re reading, maybe we can respect their right to read and
like whatever they want to. Which I understand is superscary because if I don’t
like it, nobody else is allowed to like it either, right? I feel like the issue
here is actually ‘Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard
literature to be published.’ Which is probably scary for a lot of people
who believe that certain people and certain kinds of writing don’t have a right
to be published or read.

'EBOOKS ARE KILLING REAL BOOKS!!!111 I FUCKING HATE THEM AND I WILL KILL
THEM ALL WITH MY FACE WHEN I FINISH TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE EBOOKS AND DIGITAL
LITERATURE WHILE USING THIS DIGITAL FORMAT!!!1'

This kind of argument reminds me of the illustrious people who love to tell everyone that they “support gay couples” because unlike "real" couples, gay couples are gay people having gay sex, and if all you know
about homosexuality comes from porn, you believe these gay people are having
gay sex all the time which just makes them so gay. It’s similar to this je ne sais quoi that
makes us say gay marriage, like it is different from “real” marriage possibly because it consists of gay people having gay sex all the time.

If you work real hard and try to wrench your focus away from the gay sex
(which is hard, I know), one realizes that gay couples are just couples and gay marriage is just marriage. And if you take the 'e' and the scary internetedness away from the ebook, you find that the ebook is just a book. People
write them and other people read them and hate them or forget them or enjoy them and collect
them and take them along on vacay and if the thing isn’t DRMd to death, they
share them with other people. It’s a fucking book, whether you like the format or not and while it may not be in keeping with your romantic, privileged and narrow notions of what a book should be, ebooks (and audio
books and podcasts) make reading easier and a lot more accessible for a lot of
us.

I would like to end this with some anti-ebook quotes by two rather famous authors, which just goes to prove that ebooks really do suck and the ebook haters win.

18
comments:

And ebooks are awesome. I too have experienced the musty-assedness of eleventy hand books, because I come from a country where the sewage we swim in is rawer, so I say all hail anything that makes access to books just that much easier.

Same goes for http://www.googleartproject.com/ and all the art-farts having synaptic fits because ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod now all the art doesn't belong to hoitytoities only anymore, and what if youngpersons or oldspeople in Naogaon, Bangladesh be able to look at Goya (http://www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-frick-collection/artwork/the-forge-francisco-de-goya-y-lucientes/327243/) even when they're not there, Huh, what then?

Molay Kuzhali, yuvar getting outraged for nothing. The shirt is by one "regretsy' fellow whose name may sound regrettable but is actually ironical. How confusing, allay?

See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Winchell#Internet

And see this: "Featured in the fuckery store section on Zazzle, this brilliant men's t-shirt idea was created by "Regretsy". With a t-shirt title of “namaste, bitches tshirt”, this white regretsy tee is just one of the uncountable stunning regretsy ideas offered online at Zazzle. The artist "Regretsy" appropriately dubbed this standard zazzle tee shirt the namaste, bitches tshirt, you can see other unique schwag by looking through our marketplace for products tagged as "fuckery tee shirts", "regretsy tshirts", "namaste bitches t shirts", or "whimsicle shirts"." stolen from T-shirt description.

Ponnu moley (golden girl - not like the TV show), simply yuvar outraging for no reason only. Paavam americans and their piss water. Why yuvar cursing and dissing those fellows I say.

What do you mean no blogpost next weekend???!! What is this?!!Haidear. It is beginning to feel like this is a penpal correspondence with you on the interwebs. I love it, frankly.You have rem acu tetigisti-ed with the harangue against e-book haters. How do I know? Because until I read my first e-book years ago and then got a Kindle last year *kisses Kindle repeatedly, wipes screen* I thought I should hate e-books also. I am well past that embarrassing phase now, along with having gotten over my Spice Girls fixation. I still love Akshay Kumar though, and there is nothing I can do about it.Oh. I fear I may have lost the track of the intelligent train of thoughts this comment was about.

Anywaiz, when's your next ebook out? I am in BLR in December and am buying you lunch/dinner/coffee/smelly book from Blossoms, or whatever you wish. Because I am your fan and you will be signing pages for me.Thank you. Thank you.

PS: Don't you love PSes?PPS: In epic tragic state of affairs am unable to see any of your stolen GIFs when in the village, which is mostly. I will assume they are badass good.

Okay, I've never read an ebook so I don't know what to say about it. Except, I'm buying myself a Kindle soon and then I can have an opinion about it. I think ebooks are betcher because you know storage, won't get eaten by termites, won't get mold from rainy season moistureintheair. So many good things are there. :)

The biggest irony is of course the people who do bitch about ebooks. They all own blogs, or some form of internet-based-communication-medium. Why so hypocrisy is the question for them. But they'll get hoity again and I'll want to make them swim in raw sewage.

And then the white people who make white things about brown people and sell it to other white people - I want to force feed them coovum water!

What ya? Namaste is the only thing these foreigners get about India. Fucking buggers. And I like real books a little more than e-books which is why I'm eyeing the kindle thingy which I'm told is for reading books on a tablet like thingy. Me wants it so badly! It will help me get over the oldbooksmell that I am addicted to.

"Which led me to think, hay maybe this aspect of molesting your reading material as part of your reading experience is actually a privilege. I say this as someone who has often not been able to get my hands on “real” books, but I could access ebooks and podcasted books which were available even in my tiny corner of the world and often for totes free. I think that eating and rubbing a book all over your body may be one of many reading experiences. I don’t think it’s the only one, the real one, the true one, the authentic one, the original one, or the best one ever. Not all of us have the means to buy and do that to our books. Many of us may not want to do that also. I don’t think that means that we are not reading because we are not reading like you are."

I agree, it's totally ridiculous the way people go on about ebooks. Having said that, I just bought a paper copy of your book, mainly because I hear it comes with a large intestine and if I accidentally rip the page it will bleed actual blood and cry real tears.

Hi Kuzhali!I love your blog! And i bought your book and read it and often enjoyed it when i felt i was understanding it. I realized much later that that was as much as needed to be understood! I will have to reread it in order to fully enjoy the parts that i had refrained from enjoying because i had been afraid i wasn't understanding it. I'm glad i own my own copy, therefore.

I also was wondering if you would be interested in judging a short fiction writing competition the details of which i shall email you as soon as i am done posting this here. Please please say yes! It'll be so much fun if you do!

@Nadiya- ohaifraand! “all hail anything that makes access to books just that much easier” I know, right? Was there this much opposition and badfeeling when the groundbreaking bookmobile was introduced I wonder. ‘I hate bookmobiles because everyone should walk to the library like I did”

@anonymous kutty-okthanks but I aint even mad tho! Also feel they should issue some sort of handbook for third world colored folk so we can know when we’re not supposed to be offended by American irony.

@longblackveil- haidear :) I also liked akshay kumar very much also. I had a big picture of him on my wall during sweetcollegedays. I don’t want to talk about it.

@shruthi- hai :) isn’t that like the best thing evar? To get on the internet and talk about how ebil internet-based-communication-mediums are? Really feel like it’s the oldbooksmell thing that makes it so ebil, once there’s an app for that I think the world will be a better place

@ lost and found- hai! Really hoping they will make a ‘vannakam you moist motherfuckers’ t-shirt. Just in terms of unity in diversity and all that

@ aneela z- ohai! ah yes, I was forgetting that one. Ebooks are un-Indian and evil import from the West. Can’t believe I forgot that one. #againstindianculture

@ pallavi rao- yes! project Gutenberg ftw! Also, hai!

@georgina- yay, thanks for buying a copy of my book :). Thankfully, it has an immensely resilient large intestine which can also regenerate and make cupcakes. That are in the shape of unicorns. That sparkle. And have rainbows coming out of their bums. ok im lying about the rainbows.

First of all, I am so glad to have you back on your blog :) I really enjoyed this particular post. The e-book rant came out so well especially because the humor was spot-on! I laughed out loud at the parts: "...inhaling a swordfish...", "...rubbing a book all over your body..." and "...ebooks because they have no large intestine". Hahaha!

Speaking of e-books, just today, I was looking at how I could get my hands on your books since I have not read any yet but gone through many of your stories through the links you have on your blog and enjoyed them. I found that I could get your books in e-format, so this provided the perfect opportunity to put them on my Kindle which I had received for free from my employer years ago but which still lies asleep gathering dust since I would borrow books from the library due to them being free of cost. Now, I plan to buy your books and use them to kiss the Sleeping Beauty (or Snow White, if you will, my Kindle is also white in color) and break the spell! :P (Forgive my over-the-top analogy!) Anyway, your books shall inaugurate my Kindle and I very much look forward to reading them. :)

hai dancing fingers singing keyboard, thank you for reading and saying nice things :) i am also honored that my ebooks shall inaugurate your Kindle, I hope you like them and i also hope that you read somany ebooks you like on your Kindle.

Update from my previous comment. My sister bet me to it and sent an actual copy of your book "Insects are..." for my birthday. But after I finished that one, I did get your eChapbook "Eating Sugar..." on my Kindle; so there! I really enjoy and admire your writing style. The books are a quirky but extremely fresh breath of air and there was not one boring moment! Looking forward to your future endeavors now...

About Me

Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications. She also has an email id and it goes like kuzhali (dot) ehm (at) gmail (dot) com